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A quick ‘what writer friends of mine are up to’ post

February 12, 2009 — Ned Raggett

Because there’s some great stuff happening, even in the midst of all the crud. (But isn’t that always the way?)

Tom Ewing of Freaky Trigger‘s had a great week — amazingly he ended up on BBC Radio 2 to talk briefly with the rather horrifying Chris Evans about Popular, which I can’t stress enough as being the best long term collection of pop music reflections from a single artist out there currently under way. I caught the live broadcast but you can listen to it here for the next few days, his bit’s about an hour and ten minutes in, apparently. Meantime, FT has started a wonderful new series of posts dedicated to reading all the stories by one of my favorite authors, M. R. James. Given the excellent quality of the commentators this will be a treasure, and I’m already looking forward to seeing how some stories I absolutely adore will be given new insights.

Tim Finney, who bounced back from that operation a year ago without a trouble, is part of a new televised panel that will be running down in Melbourne in March, Dancing About Architecture — no word about whether it’ll be streamed or not but I have hopes YouTube or the like will be of assistance. Anyway, more news via their Facebook page and, I presume, their just-started weblog, but for now I just want to publicize this all-too-perfect promo image, one of three done for this:

Finally, Bill Brewster, co-author of the essential Last Night a DJ Saved My Life and one of the folks behind the excellent DJHistory site, has announced the forthcoming publication of Vince Aletti’s The Disco Files 1973-78, a collection of the many pieces Aletti wrote during that time on the music and the clubs and so forth. In ways, this is the equivalent of the work Tim and Tom have done over this decade, observing and commenting on pop as it emerges and is codified — what Aletti was doing was no different, if in a much different context and with a different readership. But all three sought to capture lightning in a bottle, and while Tim and Tom have the advantage of the Net to draw everything together under one roof, Aletti’s work needed this kind of effort to help make it known again. You can read a sampler of the book here — this already looks like an essential publication, and while I’m not sure of US publication details yet, personally I think I’m going to splurge for it — though only after my birthday!